Oaked blackcurrant WOW

[Tim_Crowhurst]

I had a load of blackcurrants in the freezer which I needed to get rid of, as autumn is just round the corner and I'll need at least two of the three trays free for freezing foraged fruit. (I also now have sixteen jars of redcurrant jelly, and will soon have twenty of gooseberry jam, for the same reason.) I picked up a couple of cartons of RGJ last week as they were damaged so 25% off, so I decided to do this:

2L RGJ
750g cooked mashed blackcurrants
600g sugar
1 mug black tea
1tsp each pectolase, yeast nutrient & oak chips
Water to 4.75L
General purpose wine yeast

OG was 1083, which should give a finished ABV of 11.5-12%. I know you'd normally use much more blackcurrants than that, however I also know they can be overpowering and I want a red table wine.

 

[Tim_Crowhurst]

Update:

I got seven bottles out of this, topped up with a little elderberry and apple & elderberry wines since I bottled those the same day. The FG was .993 giving an ABV of 11.9%, exactly as I'd expected.

Last Tuesday I shared a bottle with my aunt & uncle, and I am very pleased with how it turned out. Quite light-bodied, with a fruity flavour and deep red colour. The light body should make it ideal for Christmas, since you don't really want a heavy wine with all that rich food, and it should improve quite a bit over the next month so I'm now really looking forward to trying it with the turkey.

I originally intended to backsweeten on bottling day, but forgot - and I'm glad I did, because I think it works really well as a dry wine. The only slight disappointment was that the blackcurrant flavour was weaker than I'd expected, so I'll use a full kilo next time.